Customer Reviews

Canyons

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If it looks and acts like a wolf pack hunting humans, it can only be a werewolf brood settling near Denver. Already residing in the Mile High City is the leader of another werewolf pack Lucius. He tries to act as human as possible. He lives in an apartment, works as a bartender, and dates female Homo Sapiens. He hides his heritage in order to protect his pack. However, his identity is in danger of exposure when he saves a woman's life from a gangbanger.

He picks the worst person to save, at least from a werewolf perspective as Cathy "Cat" Mosell works for the Quest, a tabloid so sleazy that its peers avoid it. She saw his transformation from man to wolf and reports her up close and personal observation to her editor. He runs a front-page expose claiming a dangerous werewolf runs loose in the city. The newly arrived werewolves are vermin challenging Lucius' more civilized crowd. With half the city already after them and now a deadly rival wanting supremacy, Lucius seems to have too much to deal with yet still wants Cat as his own.

This horror story looks deeply inside the heart, mind, and soul of a werewolf in such an in depth manner that readers will believe that this novel is a character study. The audience learns how the lycanthrope think and feel especially about their own species and their natural enemy humanity. In this wonderfully written work of fiction, P.D Cacek brings credence to the existence of lycanthropic creatures by making CANYONS a howling successful look at "reality."

Harriet Klausner

This is not your ordinary werewolf book. Using the tabloid papers as focal point for the heroine, the author presents a number of twists and turns that are quite believable. Her characters are well-developed, especially Cat Moselle. Though I found parts of the book a little too graphic for my taste, overall it delivered a satisfying read. From the ending I assume there will be more books about Cat to come.

Can anyone explain to me what the motivation of the central character was? For some reason we are supposed to believe that some kind of bond exists between Cat and Lucius but the nature of this bond is never explained. Why are they drawn to each other?
Supposedly suprising plot developments are seen coming a mile away. (Guess who else is a werewolf?) And the attempts at humor in the tabloid headlines interspersed throughout the book are groaningly awful. Lastly, the climax degenerates into a gory, splatterpunk-wannabe bloodfest. The reviews for this one led to me expect so much more.

On the plus side, the story moves along at a swift pace and the dialogue is well written and witty (the thudding attempts at humor aside.). I would just like to have seen the characters fleshed out a little more and the plot strengthened.

I know that creating a novel is hard work. I'll give Cacek credit there. But I'd really like to know what makes the central character in any novel tick. No explanation is given here and I suppose we are just expected to ignore that and get lost in all the bloodletting. If you want to read the real thing, try S.P. Somtow's "Moon Dance." (Curiously enough, Cacek cites that vastly superior novel on the Acknowledgement page.)

To sum it up, I just couldn't connect with this novel. There is an obvious setup for a sequel and I'll hope for better things. It does appear that Cacek has the chops. It just didn't come together on this one.

I agree with the other reviewers on the account that this book was very gory--especially when so much of it centered around juveniles. I found Cat (the main character) pretty annoying in her gullibility and, with the exception of the ending, the whole story to be extremely predictable.

Which is why I'm baffled with myself on the account that I finished the book in one sitting and then I went to see if Cacek wrote this as the first in a series. Yes, I actually want to continue reading these books (that is, if it is a series). Like all those other stupid humans that slow down to stare at horrible car crashes, I'm drawn to the violence and animalistic behavior Cacek showed in her characters. Considering the fact that she protrayed her characters as more animal than man, causes me to understand the ending also. Being a dog owner I know that male dogs do not "set up house" with a female dog--they'll only want her bad enough when she's in heat.

The story reminded me a little of the old Kolchak: The Night Stalker TV series, with its tabloid journal background and the quirky tone and characters. Denver is well-drawn and the concept of the decrepit warehouse district of Lower Downtown harboring a renegade werewolf pack makes for creepy reading. The concept of one of Denver's oldest families being yet another werewolf clan was less well-drawn, however, though still an interesting concept.

This being a novel about the beast in all of us, feeding time inevitably comes around, but there was no reason for the level of detail Cacek brought to the violence. Still, it's a good love story with a lot of action, and the lingering fear that she plants in your mind will keep you away from warehouse districts after dark.

The beginning of the book was good. The violence didn't bother me. I expected violence in a werewolf book. The incest took me completely by surprise and was an absolutely disgusting edition to the story. It was not needed at all. It did nothing to add to the plot. It was unnecessary and turned me off all other books by this P. D. Cacek

Although I agree with some of the other reviewers about this book being a bit graphic on the werewolf attacks, they fit with the story. I enjoyed the tongue in cheek humor used by the author when her main character, Cat Moselle keeps seeing headlines from her paper as the events are happening to her. I will be looking forward to a sequel, as the author ended the story with that expectation. One thing I did find interesting that I didn't notice mentioned by the other reviewers, was the idea of diffences-weremen & werewolves-also the family interaction was interesting because it was more like animals. Anyway, I enjoyed it & would recommend it for anyone looking for a dfferent type of werewolf story.

Cacek had me totally enthralled with this witty and very violent
werewolf "romance". C.K. Moselle a tabloid reporter finds herself
in one of her ridiculous stories when she is saved from being shot to death by drug-up juvenile by a werewolf!After her lycanthrope savior kills her attacker and flees, C.K. called Cat and her photographer,Ed; they discover that Denver is the battleground between two competing werewolf clans and one of them is terroizing Denver with some brutal murders; and she is the prize! Cacek's gripping horror novel slides from satirizing the sleazy tabloid business to gothic romance between Cat and her werewolf lover Lucius to full-blown graphic horror as the author describes the werewolf attacks in gruesome detail.The dialogue was especially funny as Cat sees her life become more like one of stories and she imagines the headlines about it! the characters also were great like noble Lucius as he tries to fight his attraction to Cat while protecting his Clan and clearing his name from the brutal murders committed by the rival werewolves!Ed-Cat's cynical photographer friend a hilarious dirty old man with a few secrets of his own!Scooter, Lucius crippled twin brother who glides from sarcasm to self-pity. Fans of Laurell hamilton (like I am)is delicious brew of witty dialogue, gruesome gory and steamy romance!

Tabloid reporter meets real werewolf. What's not to like with that, especially since the story is punctuated with tabloid story titles highlighting important scenes. This is a quick and interesting read. I think that I'd cut the character of Cat a little more slack than some of the other reviewers because, when you think about it, she found herself in some really weird circumstances. Some readers might be bothered by the graphic violence and incestuous relationships (but hey, they're lycanthropes not humans). My problem with this book was the ending. Throughout the whole book, Lucius seems to have some sort of mystical connection with Cat, saving her and pursuing her. The basis for this is never really explained, but it had to be more than her being a you-know-what in heat (which I'm just surmising here, because that was never mentioned). Yet at the end of the book his personality changes completely, and I don't think that the character development that led up to this justifies it. Here's hoping there'll be a sequel (since threads were definitely left hanging) that'll resolve some of my questions. Even having said all this, if you're a werewolf/paranormal genre fan, this book is definitely worth reading.

When I first began reading this book I found myself actually enjoying it and looking forward to what was going to happen further along in the story. The story starts out violently, with the gruesome murder of a young homeless drug addict by a pack of vicious werewolves. I felt like this beginning was powerful and really made you feel like you could expect anything in the storyline to come...and that certainly was true...in a BAD way. I would have really enjoyed this book had it not been for the incest backstory and the child molestations that do not seem to be that big of a deal when they are occuring (except to the shocked reader). I was disgusted, mortified and simply beyond uncomfortable when it was stated that our main character lycanthrope, Lucius, has children with his mother, and that he also has sex with his own daughters. I KNOW that actual wolves and animals in the wild do procreate with there relatives, but for characters with human emotions that can SPEAK-it's unnacceptable. I was sickened by the incest and at the point that it was mentioned I lost ALL interest in the characters and what would happen to them. Also, I am NOT interested in reading about young children being molested. This book was gruesome more so in the sexuality department then the gore. I didn't like it.